The Queene's Cure (12 page)

Meg envied Bett that the big, muscular Nick willingly did as his petite wife bid him, turning the wooden spoon over to her care. Ben would have probably smacked his own wife with it for ordering him around like that, but Nick, big bruiser that he was, seemed always amenable. Besides, he and Bett were still far gone in love and that cut Meg to the quick.

She sent Nick out on two deliveries, which Ben could have done since they were both down by the river, but she didn't want to even ask him to lift a finger. It didn't take much for him to lift a fist against her anytime she irked him, the sot.

“All right,” Meg told Bett, as she laid out the first linen piece on the counter and smoothed it open, “put a spoonful of that here, and I'll show you how to spread and roll them. Then when the customer steams them, the grace plaster is moist again to cure anything from the ague to chest cough.”

Bett Cotter, nee Sharpe, was of slender but sturdy frame, with flyaway blond hair and pale eyes. Whenever her temper flared, like at Nick just now, the jagged, puckered scar on her chin reddened, and the bigger scar on her thumb where she'd had her “T” brand for thief burned off by a surgeon several years ago was always
hurting her. Bett indeed might just be the first recipient of Dr. Clerewell's Venus Moon mixture.

Bett laid a good dollop of the thick medicinal plaster on the linen, and Meg adroitly spread it over and through, however much mess it made on the counter. “You've got to work quick with this or it hardens fast,” she explained, “and then you have to heat it again.”

“Mm,” Bett said, as she hung over Meg's shoulder, then jumped back to stirring. “Gil signaled something about wanting to learn to paint on plaster, but it couldn't have been this mushy kind. He was a bit secretive about making some gift for Her Grace.”

At that scrap of knowledge, Meg forced herself to roll up the linen carefully, then spread out another. She tried not to cross-question Bett overmuch about the queen because she didn't want her to suspect how sad—and furi-ous—she was about being dismissed.

“Her Grace hasn't been sick or out of sorts, has she?” she asked, keeping her voice calm. “Here, you do this next one, but get that pot off the flame first.”

As Bett plopped another glob of plaster between Meg's caked hands, a shadow filled the doorway. Meg jerked so hard when she saw who it was that she ruffled the linen into sharp folds. Why in heaven's name did she always have to look out of sorts the rare times Ned Topside came calling? At least Ben wasn't here, but who knew when he'd be back?

“Good day to you, Master Topside,” Bett sang out as
she took the mixture off the small cauldron fire and plunged her hands in the mess Meg had made.

Meg tried to scrape off what she could and plunged her hands into the bucket of water, hoping to wash off the rest. Working with plasters always dried her hands. She thought longingly of Dr. Clerewell's soft skin, but then Ned never so much as took her hand.

“Ned, how are you—and everyone?” she inquired, hoping that sounded nonchalant as she rolled her sleeves back down in place.

“I'd like to talk with you privily,” he said only and didn't smile.

“I guess I don't mind,” she replied, hoping he wouldn't note her bad case of trembling. She dried her hands on her apron and walked as slowly as she could to the door. Damn the rogue. She'd never yet seen a man with such a fine turn of leg, ruggedly handsome face, and clever mouth to boot, and he knew it.

“Gracious, it's gone foggy out,” Meg said, peering past him into the street. Weather was always a safe topic.

“Take a little walk with me, then, to cool off.”

“Cool off?” she challenged.

“You were working hard in there, weren't you? I thought I saw steam coming from the counter.”

She breathed a bit easier. Always fond of wordplay, he could easily have meant that she was angry with the queen or him, or that he made her go hot as a brass kettle when he looked assessingly at her like that. “I could use a
bit of air,” she said, grateful to get away from the shop in case Ben came back. Bett knew not to squeal about her being with Ned.

They strolled down the Strand toward the palace, past Ned's horse a hired neighbor boy was holding. “How is she then?” Meg blurted, unable to hold back.

“Her Grace?” the jolthead asked, knowing full well that's who she meant. “Better now that Kat's cured, but busy as you know, going hither and yon to keep folks' spirits up and keep a sharp eye on things. But then you know that too, especially with your knowledge of her trips by barge or horse, maybe coach too.”

“Meaning what?” she asked as they walked around a puddle of refuse someone had just heaved out of an upper window. Instinctively, they moved closer to the shops and houses, beneath the overhang of second and third stories.

“Meaning Jenks and I see you now and then as you are seeing her.”

Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them back. “Everyone likes to see her. Oh, Ned, I wish things hadn't exploded so bad between Her Grace and me. I'd risk all to have her take me back.”

“Would you now?” he said as he studied her askance.

They stopped before a group of children playing a game with pig knucklebones, then turned around and started back toward the shop. “But taking her clothes
like that, Meg,” he protested, “then impersonating her with—”

“What do you think you trained me to do and she asked of me more than once?” she demanded so loudly he glanced both ways and tugged her back into a narrow alley.

“You'd never do such a thing again, would you?” he demanded, “I mean, borrow one of her gowns and such?”

Her stomach flip-flopped. Could this mean he'd been sent to ask her to return?

“I may be some knock-headed girl she took in and you taught to read and write proper, but do you think I'm demented?”

“Fine, fine,” was all the usually loquacious actor would say.

Her hopes of a palace reprieve shattered. “I've got to go,” she said, however much she cherished each moment with him. Each time he turned tail to return to the world and woman she cared so for, it nearly killed her. “No good to be seen in alleys with the likes of you,” she added, hoping that sounded lighthearted.

“It's a good place to observe others from, though, isn't it?” he countered as he glanced up and down their narrow hiding place, his voice dark with unspoken accusations again.

She stared him down. “Spit it out, Edward Thompson, alias Ned Topside, queen's fool and favorite player. I'm no fool, so don't play your clever games with me.”

“I have it on good authority you were in an alley on Knightrider Street yesterday morn, covertly watching Her Majesty.”

Caught, she thought, but she spit out, “On whose good authority? Jenks's?”

“Meant to stay hidden, did you?”

“I was part of the crowd there and crowds don't covertly watch Her Majesty. They do it loudly and publicly. Yes, I was out in the area doing deliveries because Nick Cotter took sick, and you can ask him about that. And I don't need you playing inquisitor any more than I need Ben Wilton doing it!”

She turned on her heel, but he seized her arm and spun her back hard against his chest. She pressed both hands flat to him until he let her go. They stared deep and long into each other's eyes while her stomach turned another flip-flop or two.

“Yes,” she said, her voice nearly breaking, “I watch her when I can. I love to watch her, be near her. Like you, like all of us, I
love her.
”

He but nodded when she was expecting a bitter scolding or long speech. “It's just that someone in that crowd put something in her coach that shouldn't have been there,” he said, his voice more kindly now. “Were you present when she screamed?”

“Screamed? Elizabeth Tudor screamed? No. What caused it?”

“Suffice it to say it was something stuffed with your— and her—favorite sweet-smelling herbs,” he told her, and she saw he was again watching her face for any reaction. But if the man was too much of a lackbrain to know how she adored him, she wasn't worried he'd uncover her passion for him or much else.

“Then that's all?” she asked, hand on hips. “If you're going to blame me, you're barking up the wrong tree, royal lapdog.”

“By the way,” he said, “Lord Robin's not even that anymore, so she's taken a turn from all men. The queen uses Mary Sidney as a sort of escort, a chaperone when Lord Robin's around, and it irks him to no end, however much he doesn't let on. And, by-the-by, speaking of herb stuffings, I was in a discussion the other day as to whether saffron is good or bad for one's health— headaches and all,” he inquired in an obvious change of topics.

She studied his shifting expressions with a keen eye. “Saffron is good for many cures,” she told him, relieved to be on solid ground again. “It seems to help in diseases like measles and yellow jaundice, not that a mere herb girl grown to an apothecary is allowed to prescribe a thing these days with the vulture doctors hovering over our shoulders. But, as in life, too much of a good thing can be bad, even fatal. If you take more than ten grains of saffron at once, it can hurt your heart.…”

She stopped talking. His allure was so great she almost
tilted into him. “Ned,” she blurted, before she lost the courage to say it, “I'm asking you not to come to the shop again. Not because you came with questions today, but because of Ben. He's real jealous, not just of you but of—”

“Of Nick Cotter too?” he asked, frowning, one hand gripping his sword hilt so hard his knuckles turned white.

“Well, no, not since he thinks Nick's so thickheaded, but …”

“Which brings up Jenks.”

“Ah, Jenks—just a little.”

“Surely he's not disturbed by Gil's dropping by. Or do you mean he's jealous of customers?”

“Ned, leave off. A pox on it!”

He seized her arms hard, pressing her back against the wood-and-plaster wall. His sword hilt hurt her hipbone, his leather jerkin flattened her breasts. For one wild moment, she thought he meant to kiss her.

“Don't say that—a pox on it,” he ordered, giving her a little shake. “And, yes, I'll stay away unless I need to come back with more questions or even accusations about your trying to get even with Her Grace for sending you away in disgrace.”

She was so appalled that she burst into loud sobs. To her amazement, he pulled her into his arms, rocking her slightly. “I'm sorry, Meg—Sarah. I didn't mean it like it sounded,” he murmured, his mouth in her hair against
her flushed forehead. “I know you long to come back to serve her, and if I had a way to achieve it for you, I would.”

“Truly?” she asked with a sniff and wiped her nose on her sleeve as he set her back. He fished out of his jerkin a linen handkerchief, fine as any courtier's. She took it and blotted her nose, then tucked it down in the folds of her gown, hoping he'd forget it. In case he heeded her plea and never came back again, she'd have something to remember him by beyond her crazed dreams at night and daydreams by morning light.

“I've got to get back,” she said. “Fare-thee-well, Ned Topside. And if you see me staring from the crowd someday, don't you go thinking the worse of me.”

“I won't,” he promised. “I understand. But Meg,” he added as she started away, “would you mind then if I take a lock of your hair to—just to remember old times?”

She almost cried again. Ned did care. He wanted a keepsake, a token of their friendship. Afraid to trust her voice again, she nodded and stood still while, from her pinned tresses under her kerchief, he adeptly loosed a curl and cut it cleanly with his penknife. His early days of playing women's parts and years since working with lads to paint and primp and dress them like ladies for the stage made him smooth as silk with things like that.

She grasped his fingers as he took the tress, and brushed a kiss on his hand before she rushed from the alley.
At the door of the shop, she nearly ran right into her husband coming up from the river.

I
HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU, YOUR GRACE,” MARY SIDNEY
said with a gleam in her bright blue eyes as she sat next to the queen on the oriel window seat. Her other ladies were grouped about the presence chamber playing primero, giggling, or fussing with their lapdogs or parrots, for the queen had sent the men away early after supper. “You've been overly distracted with all this worry, and I want to cheer you,” Mary insisted with a pretty pout.

Elizabeth forced a smile. Who could not respond to Mary's graceful and generous gestures? “What sort of a surprise, dearest Mary? Lately surprises are not as amusing as they used to be. But I thank you for your help,” she added, leaning closer to her friend, “in trying to trace the red hair. I intend to discover if that old woman is still making wigs.”

Glancing askance at the other ladies, Mary whispered, “But since you had already heard of her from another source, how did I help?”

“I did not know she was still working with wigs, or exactly where she lived, so I have you to thank for that. Nor did I know her name was Honoria Wyngate before you told me so.”

“And I have you, my queen, to thank for being my
beloved friend—mine, my lord's, and, of course, Robin's,” Mary said as she produced a small, velvet box from up her sleeve. “See, this is only the first part of the surprise.”